J. Edgar (2011)

J. Edgar Synopsis

As the face of law enforcement in America for almost 50 years, J. Edgar Hoover was feared and admired, reviled and revered. But behind closed doors, he held secrets that would have destroyed his image, his career and his life.

The surprising variety of performances he has put on has been what has let Leonardo DiCaprio stand out in Hollywood, but it turns out that there is one particular plot element that appears in a lot of his projects. To put it bluntly: he dies a lot.

2012 marks the GLAAD Media Awards 23rd year, and the ceremony has grown from a small affair to a lavish and celebrity-studded string of festivities that take place in New York City, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Fittingly, this year's nominees include features with A-listers as well as films from all over the globe.

There were plenty of movies from this year that I absolutely loved and others that I absolutely hated, but thereís a very special category that exists between both of those ends: the ones that left me utterly disappointed. While I always enter a movie theater hoping to love the hell out of whatever Iím watching, the truth is that there are some films that I spend a lot of time thinking about and anticipating, only to be left frustrated at the end.

From the stylized fighting to the over abundance of enhanced abs, it's hard not to draw comparisons between 300 and this weekend's new entry Immortals. But one place where the two diverge is box office performance. While Immortals banked a decent $32 million, it fell short of the $70 million the highly anticipated 300 opened to back in 2007.

This week on Operation Kino, we're writing down secret files about everyone who downloads this podcast, as we review the new Clint Eastwood directed biopic J. Edgar. After that we talk about a problem that Eastwood himself never has-- movie budgets, why they're so ridiculously gigantic, and what Hollywood can do to stop spending so much damn money for no reason

The biopic, as much as it's a genre that can turn boring and preachy, is also the opportunity to tell the life stories of a lot of really fascinating people. So even though this weekend's biopic effort turned out kind of dull, we're not ready to give up! Here are five more people who are totally worthy of their own life stories being told onscreen

J. Edgar, opening today, ticks off all the boxes required for Oscar bait, from the legendary director to the biopic subject to the historical weight to the big names in the supporting cast. But most of all it's got Leonardo DiCaprio, whose movies in the last 6 years or so have been guaranteed for Oscar buzz every single time

This Friday, one legend of old Hollywood and one modern-day icon are joining forces for the first time, as Leonardo DiCaprio stars in Clint Eastwood's decades-spanning biopic J. Edgar. Playing the legendary founder of the FBI whose private life was just as scandalous and fascinating as his public persona

Hope everyone turned their clocks back in anticipation for a dark, cold, lonely winter. Iíll never understand why we do that, but its neither here nor there for the Rotten Watch. Weíve got some movies to cover. This week its Sandler and Sandler, Greek Gods duking it out and Leo biopic-ing J Edgar

The first poster is fine if not overly simple, but I really like the second poster. Not only do I love the added color scheme, but the texture on Leonardo DiCaprio's face - which, close up, looks like its been taken off a dollar bill - is amazing. This proves that it doesn't take much to turn an ordinary poster into an awesome one.

Clint Eastwood might be over 80 years old, but he's not showing any signs of slowing down. The Oscar winning filmmaker has averaged one movie a year since 2002 - making two films in both 2006 and 2008 - and has always managed to earn award buzz even before anyone has seen his new movie. But for the first time in years, Eastwood is coming back from a critical disappointment. So how has decided to rebound? With a biopic about the life and times of J. Edgar Hoover.

Last week was the 2001 Licensing International Expo in Las Vegas. While much of what came out of the convention wasn't that great, it did provide looks at projects including The Avengers, The Amazing Spider-Man, and The Hunger Games. But while the expo has long since ended, concept art is still leaking online.

Before I started writing for Cinema Blend I was one of those unlucky college students that graduated just around the time that the economy imploded. An out of work filmophile with a bachelors in journalism, I decided to start up my own film news site with a friend of mine. The first post I wrote was about a music video for a cover of the song "This Must Be The Place" by The Talking Heads.

Though Hoover famously clashes with Kennedy's older brother when he was President, and investigated JFK's assassination, it's unclear why Eastwood might be focusing on Hoover's interactions with Robert Kennedy as well. It seems safe to assume they'll be casting another actor as JFK

Much of Eastwood's film focuses around Hoover's investigation of the Lindbergh baby kidnapping, and his realization that the wrong man likely was hanged for the crime. Root will play the wood specialist who helped Hoover investigate the ladder that was used in the kidnapping.

At the end of last year, when it was revealed that Judi Dench would play a role in Clint Eastwood's biopic of J. Edgar Hoover, the director said that Charlize Theron, who had been in talks for the role of

Because his last couple projects didn't go over so well with either critics or audiences, Clint Eastwood has a lot to prove with his next film, a biopic about J. Edgar Hoover. Kicking things off, he has already begun

The Lindbergh kidnapping, and the subsequent trial against Hauptmann that was allegedly riddled with inconsistencies and fraud, was one of the first major cases Hoover investigated through the nascent Federal Bureau of Investigatio